Digital Knowledge for Justice in the Anthropocene
Digital Knowledge for Justice in the Anthropocene
Tuesday, 8 July 2025: 19:00-20:30
Location: FSE036 (Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE))
WG10 Digital Sociology (host committee) Language: English
The very notion of digitally extended cognition deeply troubles and unsettles traditional epistemology. Similarly, contestations of digital epistemology abound. Modes of knowing and knowledge generated from digitally stored and produced information deeply trouble the stable research program. What genuine and pertinent knowledge "gadget minds" can enable for human emancipatory purposes is on our watershed era's central axis of inquiry. How do we know without knowing how artificially intelligent actants in cognition ‘cogitate’ humans’ predicament in the Anthropocene? Can their ‘knowledge’ be trusted to solve justly and responsibly the problems of humanity’s own making in becoming the ‘geological force’ while lacking the knowledge to cope with the consequences of the enormity of such power?
This session calls on researchers to critically examine the structural affordances of digital knowledge generation. Papers should focus on the power dynamics of digital knowledge and how it impacts whom, when, and how it can become significant in our understanding of the Anthropocene’s injustices and their transcending. Insights into the reliability and effectiveness of digitally generated knowledge for navigating the ‘triple planetary crises’, ensuring justice for the most vulnerable and least responsible people for their outbreak, could be a productive path in gauging digital knowledge's validity and advancing the digital epistemology research program.
Session Organizers:
Chair:
Oral Presentations